May 11, 2013

In Pictures: My #rp13

Here are a couple of photos I took during my three days at republica. Follow the jump for my summary of #rp13.

The first talk I listened to was Kathrin Passig's talk on Mass Customization (which basically means customizing things for many, i.e. goods like shoes or cups before ordering them from the Internet). Kathrin runs zufallsshirt.de, where you can spend hours clicking your way through random shirt designs. One of her assumptions was: "Users don't know what they want, but will recognize it when they see it."

The second talk I listened to was Deanna Zandt's "Ecstasy and Despair: How Powerful Emotions Trigger Digital Activism". She said, amongst other things: "Stories are the glue that hold data together" and "Build your community before you need it."

Deanna Zandt

Then there was Lisa Rank, who spoke on what happens to our social media profiles after we die. Her talk was packed and her main question was: "Do we want digital immortality?"

Lisa Rank

Next I attended a talk on Wikipedia where I didn't take pictures but got really worked up when the question came up why 90% of all articles on Wikipedia were written by men and why so few women participate and submit articles (which I do from time to time, btw). The following tweet pretty much summed up the discussion:

I finished the first day with most of Sascha Lobo's talk but left a bit early. He was basically rallying against Merkel and the current administration as well as Telekom, who is the first German company to end net neutrality.

Sascha Lobo

I started the next day with Teresa Bücker's talk "Monday loves you". She said whoever founds a company today gets to influence tomorrow's working culture, and that thinking 'work' more in terms of relationships would be an opportunity and investment. Apparently, women are heard in corporations only when they make up for 30% or more of all employees. "Day care and a women's quota aren't enough!", Teresa said.

Teresa Bücker

I also caught a bit of Catherine Barba's talk, who advised us to hire positive people and encourage feedback. She also said: "Women should dare to ask investors for 10 million Euro. Think big!"

Catherine Barba

Then I went for an early lunch, which I found quite expensive for Berlin standards at 7.50€. Also, I would have really liked some more vegan options. (I'm not a full vegan, but I like to make vegan choices when I get the chance.)

7.50€ lunch

I checked out a few sessions briefly after lunch but then sat down in front of stage three where first Joel Dullroy of freelancersmovement.org and then Matthias Spielkamp of irights.info spoke on freelancers' rights and the idea of an unconditional basic income. Amongst my favorite Spielkamp quotes are: "Knowledge mustn't become an artificially shortened resource" and "We have to educate problem solvers".

Matthias Spielkamp

[Then I had to miss the other afternoon sessions as I needed to rework my own presentation.]

And before I went on stage I took a photo with Ninia Binias, who had her own panel one day before and was a panel guest later for a session on handicaps on TV. Hosts Raul Krauthausen and Lili Masuhr of leidmedien.de were wondering, for example, why the media portray so few people with handicaps (especially in Germany) and why there is only one drama school in Germany - in Ulm - that admits actors with handicaps.

Ninia Binias und ich

Next I saw Sascha Stoltenow and Thomas Wiegold's talk on digital warfare. Interesting as always, they discussed how digital natives narrate war online. One of the pics I took during that talk portray the public Instagram profile of a member of the Israeli armed forces:

An Israeli soldier

Unfortunately I missed Kated Darling's talk on robot ethics, which was brilliant and can still be seen here.

Last but not least, I saw Anne Wizorek sum up"#aufschrei". She said: "We [women] are extras in our own society" and that we should work on a mutually accepting and inclusive gender culture. One in which more men wear awesome braids like yetzt:

My fave #rp13 hairdo as seen on @yetzt

I skipped the closing and went right on to have a couple of drinks in the yard... already looking forward to #rp14!

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